Civil Marriage Ceremony Experiences

Communicationb

Sorry if this has been done before...

Myself and the g/friend are getting married next summer (although we are not officially engaged yet..:)).

Basically we are going for a civil ceremony i.e. the wedding and reception in the same place and defo no religious ceremony.

She is English and I have been to a few English Weddings which work out hell of a lot cheaper and less fussy...(30/40 people..buffet meal) so we want to do something similar for cost reasons.

So basically what are other peoples experiences with getting married this way via the hotel etc?

Any info/suggestions about doing it in Cork would be great.

antiskeptic

Communicationb wrote: »

Sorry if this has been done before...

Myself and the g/friend are getting married next summer (although we are not officially engaged yet..:)).

Basically we are going for a civil ceremony i.e. the wedding and reception in the same place and defo no religious ceremony.

She is English and I have been to a few English Weddings which work out hell of a lot cheaper and less fussy...(30/40 people..buffet meal) so we want to do something similar for cost reasons.

So basically what are other peoples experiences with getting married this way via the hotel etc?

Any info/suggestions about doing it in Cork would be great.

Congrats..


You likely get better value in a restaurant than in a hotel (which appear to operate on a cartel basis by many accounts). You could get a head price in a top Dublin restaurant for the same price as a turkey/ham basics in a hotel. Ditto buffet.

I gather the rules have relaxed on venues so long as it meets basic criteria relating to solemnity and public access which should mean the possibility of booking a restaurant. If you can find one with two "zones" you could have the civil ceremony in one area, the meal/buffet in another with any afters/band/party back in the civil ceremony zone.

homerjay2005

hey, aint ever been on this forum before but i have a question, didnt want to start a new thread, so apologies if im taking this off topic. a friend of mine just got engaged. hes is not irish, but wants to get married in this country. he has been married before and got divorced, but didnt get married in a catholic church, just a reg office (it was a shorgun wedding to be honest i think!).

so, now, he wants to get married in a church an has asked me for advice, but i dont know anything about marriage. what i do know, is that the catholic church does not agree with divorce. my question is, is this only applying if you have already gotten married in a church previously? or is a divorce a divorce in their eyes?

smelltheglove

I shot a civil ceremony wedding, well every type really, registry office is quite cold and there doesnt seem to be any emotion involved in it but the lovely thing about the civil ceremony which was in a hotel was there was a room set out gorgeous, all guests seated and bride arrived and walked down aisle rather than bride and groom entering registry together.

I thought it was lovely and still held pretty much all the detail of achurch wedding just without the religon. It was a dream to photograph too as it was very bright as opposed to a dark church. Hope this helps.

To homerjay, I think the church related to church only although the fact that your friend divorced may bear different meaning to different priests. As far as the church is concerned he was never married but you may get one priest say no and another say yes, not 100% sure though.

Emerald Lass

For the church marriage question, as far as the 'church' is concerned he is a divorcee so not allowed to marry in the eyes of the catholic church. Furthermore he was married civilly, so again this prevents him from being allowed to marry again in a catholic church. As said already, you may find a sympathetic priest who will 'bless' the marriage, but there is no way he would be allowed to receive the sacriment of marriage. Furthermore, if you do find a priest willing to bless the marriage, this will have to be done most probably outside the church - this is again because the Catholic church will not allow blessings of civil marriages in the church. if a priest agrees, he is kind of going against the rules. some will do it, but chances of them allowing it in the church itself are slim.

In regards to the civil ceremony - my wedding is a civil ceremony in 4 weeks. i will let you know how it goes, but I have no worries that it will be lovely. We are having the ceremony in a stately home and then the reception in a nearby hotel.

If you have your wedding in a restaurant, one thing to watch out for - the ceremony cannot be in any room where food is served or present for 1 hour prior to the ceremony. So you would either need a seperate room for the ceremony, or make sure that the restaurant do not servie or set out any food until after the ceremony.

Congrats and good luck with the planning 0 its not as bad as some people make out, and if you keep your head screwed on you can enjoy every minute of it! I did!

macdonagh

Re the Chruch Wedding Ceremony. Best thing to do would be to phone Archbishops House in Dublin 01-8373732 and ask to be put through to the Chancellery, thats the section that deals with Wedding issues. or if u look up their website at www.dublindiocese.ie there may be a email addy for the Chancellery. The validity of the original marriage will the be important issue. He may be free to get married in a church or he may not. Whats at issue is his freedom to get married in church. If in doubt check it out.